There is a song in there somewhere as the news has now been confirmed that Dean Smith will take over at Norwich City and therefore for his second game in a row face Southampton, albeit he has changed club's in the two weeks since our last meeting.

Dean Smith has been appointed the new manager of Norwich City, that looks a good fit with Smith making his name at Walsall and Brentford and succeeding by working on building up the club rather than just the team, at Villa it was always going to be difficult because one they got to a certain level the fans would start demanding success and big name players and managers to achieve it, very difficult to do with football finances running amok at the moment and the situation worsened with Newcastle United's new owners.

That will maybe end in tears for the Toon, their celebrating fans have short memories as they cheered new part owner Amanda Staveley in her black & white matching outfit, after all the hated Mike Ashley was known for his habit of wearing a replica shirt and even sitting with the normal fans when he first took over, that soon went sour and the Toon Army started slagging off Ashley and how soon will they turn against Staveley.

Norwich seemed set to appoint Frank Lampard, a few days ago he appeared to be the front runner, but he withdrew from the running, this was perhaps a slice of luck for the Canaries, at this stage they seemed to be going for a big name and not someone who has a track record of doing the job.

Lampard has only around 2 1/2 seasons as a manager, the first saw him take Derby County to 6th place in the Championship and defeat in the play off final to Aston Villa.

This got him the Chelsea job, either sentiment of the fact that with a transfer embargo in place and no big signings available the Blues assumed this would not be a successful season and that having a club legend in the managerial hot seat would mean the fans would not turn on him.

Lampard guided Chelsea to 4th in the Premier League and the FA Cup Final, where they lost to Arsenal, a par score given the club's squad and the situation.

The following season Chelsea could spend and spend they did, but Lampard didn't have the managerial experience to deal with top players and relationships in the dressing room were non existent between the manager and many of his squad, with Chelsea in 9th place he was sacked in January of this year after only 18 months in charge.

So I think Norwich have dodged a bullet, Lampard would be using Norwich as a stepping stone as he used Derby, he would be gone at the sign of the first big job.

So we meet up with Dean Smith for the second time in a fortnight and he will be in different colours and presumably not surrounded in the technical area by the cast of Quadrophenia as he was at St Mary's due to Villa's parka green benchwear.

So although we wish Dean Smith good luck with Norwich, for this weekend we hope nothing changes for him and he will have the same start for Norwich as he had finish at Aston Villa and that is defeat to Southampton.

Hopefully he will have had little time to really change anything in the squad and his presence won't give the Canaries enough of a boost to give him a dream start in the job.

The first thing that came into my head when I saw the headline he had been appointed was a song popular at the Dell in the 1976/77 season, as we surged to the quarter finals of the European Cup Winners Cup, a competition where the final that year was to be played in Amsterdam.

It was to the tune of the old song Tulips In Amsterdam, back then it went "When it's spring again we'll sing again, Southampton in Amsterdam !

So this weekend " It's football again, so it's Dean Smith again, three points at Carrow Road"

Photo: Action Images

kingolaf added 10:00 - Nov 15 He sussed as at half-time in the last game, so will know how to set his team up. That said, I would be disappointed if we didn’t win.
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SaintNick added 10:06 - Nov 15 If he too up until half time to sus us then his scouting staff didn't do their job properly
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wrathoftazz added 11:54 - Nov 15 Scouting team not doing their job contributed to his sacking. I bet he won't make that mistake again lol. He is going to have a point to prove and the players will be out to impress. With our issues in front of goal and with Ralph being a guy who appears to write tatics in crayon, I can't see this being an easy game. I fully expect them to open strong and keep us at a 1nil defeat.

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JoeEgg added 12:08 - Nov 15 Spot on wrathoftazz! If we cant beat Norwich Ralph wont be needingthat crayon for much longer!
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underweststand added 14:39 - Nov 15 Saints made hard work of beating Villa, and Smith will surely know our tactics by now. It's upto Ralph to correct the mistakes we made in that game and maybe come up with a good Plan B that might catch Norwich out. Having said that Norwich have had a disasterous start to the season ( just about as a bad as any one of Saints' historic early season debacles). This is a game we really should put to bed by HT regardless of a new manager, or not.

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SaintPaulVW added 15:24 - Nov 15 Brentford seemed to be off the boil when they played Norwich. We seem to be building up a head of steam. Although I wish Dean Smith well, I hope the only smile on his face on Saturday is following Ralph's one liner when they shake hands before the game.
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SaintPaulVW added 15:29 - Nov 15 PS. One thing that could also be fun to watch in this match is Brandon Williams v Tino
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davidargyll added 08:46 - Nov 16 The one thing Norwich haven’t got is money. So the “play like gods or you’re out” threat won’t make any difference to them. Dean Smith will have to make use of what abilities in their squad he’s currently got and hopefully for us the new manager bounce is an illusion. They’re not dissimilar to us when Ralph took over. So all Smith can hope to do in the short term is practice a few set piece tactics, keep us out and catch us on the break - so what’s new? I hope we will win, because we’ve got pace and all round are better but it will be a real slog and not pretty because their home record isn’t bad at all. So I suspect a one all draw may be the best we can hope for.

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SanMarco added 09:27 - Nov 16 I'd have said a win was the best we could hope for David! - although I agree a draw would not be the end of the world. I think the relegation battle is far more interesting than the 'which state-backed or uber-capitalist 'big' team wins the league' question. If Brentford stay up (not quite the likelihood it seemed a few weeks ago) then the third team to go down is an intriguing question. Norwich, Watford plus ??? It wont be Villa and most of the other possibilities look like decent sides. Newcastle are the jokers in the pack. Will they spend their way out? An interesting few months ahead. PS well done Che Adams last night...

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Peterx added 13:25 - Nov 18 Happy with a point, but I also think that the goals could start flying in for AA at some stage and maybe it's this game.
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